Welcome to The United Kingdom (And a whole lot more) Explained by me, C.G.P. Grey.
歡迎收看我的英國(guó)（以及更多）介紹。

United Kingdom, England, Great Britain? Are these three the same place? Are they different places? Do British people secretly laugh those who use the terms incorrectly? Who knows the answers to these questions? I do, and I’m gonna tell you right now.
“英國(guó)”，“英格蘭”，“大不列顛”？這三個(gè)詞指的是同一個(gè)，還是不同地方？如果有人用錯(cuò)了詞，英國(guó)人會(huì)偷笑嗎？誰(shuí)知道這些問(wèn)題的答案？我知道，我現(xiàn)在來(lái)給你們解釋。

For the lost: this is the world, this is the European continent and this is the place we have to untangle.
給那些不認(rèn)地圖的：這是世界，這是歐洲，這里就是讓我們糾結(jié)的地方。

The area shown in purple is the United Kingdom. Part of the confusion is that the United Kingdom is not a single country but it instead is a country of countries. It contains inside of it four co-equal and sovereign nations.
紫色的區(qū)域就是英國(guó)，讓人疑惑的可能是，英國(guó)并不是一個(gè)單一的國(guó)家，而是聯(lián)合王國(guó)。它包含了四個(gè)地位平等的主權(quán)國(guó)家。

The first of these is England — shown here in red. England is often confused with the United Kingdom as a whole, because it’s the largest and most populous of the nations and contains the de facto capital city, London.
首先是英格蘭，紅色的部分。英格蘭經(jīng)常被誤認(rèn)是英國(guó)整體的代稱(chēng)，因?yàn)樗畲?，人口最多，以及擁有英?guó)首都倫敦。

To the north is Scotland — shown in blue, and to the west is Wales — shown in white. And what’s often forgotten even by those who live in the United Kingdom, is Northern Ireland — shown in orange.
西面是威爾士，標(biāo)成白色，另外，經(jīng)常被人甚至是英國(guó)人遺忘的是，北愛(ài)爾蘭，橙色部分。。

Each country has a local term for the population. While you can call them all ‘British’, it’s not recommended as the four countries generally don’t like each other.
每個(gè)國(guó)家都有自己的民族名稱(chēng)。雖然你可以都叫他們“英國(guó)人”，但是我不建議這樣，因?yàn)樗膫€(gè)地方的人們并不喜歡彼此。

The Northern Irish, Scottish and Welsh regard the English as slave-driving colonial masters — no matter that all three have their own?devolved?Parliaments, and are allowed to vote on English laws despite the reverse not being true — and the English generally regard the rest as rural yokels who spend too much time with their sheep.
北愛(ài)爾蘭，蘇格蘭和威爾士人認(rèn)為英格蘭人是驅(qū)使奴隸的殖民者——盡管它們?nèi)齻€(gè)都擁有獨(dú)立的地方議會(huì)，可以投票表決英國(guó)法案，而英格蘭就沒(méi)有。英格蘭人也常常認(rèn)為其他三個(gè)地方的人們是農(nóng)村來(lái)的土包子，花太多時(shí)間和羊待在一起。

However, as the four constituent countries don’t have their own passports, they are all British Citizens, like it or not. They are British Citizens of the United Kingdom, whose full name by the way is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
盡管如此，這四個(gè)國(guó)家并沒(méi)有獨(dú)立的護(hù)照。他們都是英國(guó)公民，不管喜歡不喜歡聯(lián)合王國(guó)，全稱(chēng)是大不列顛及北愛(ài)爾蘭聯(lián)合王國(guó)。

So where’s Great Britain hiding?
那么大不列顛在哪？

Right here: the area covered in black is Great Britain. Unlike England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, Great Britain is a geographical rather than a political term. Great Britain is the largest island among the British Isles.
這里，畫(huà)出黑色的地圖是大不列顛。不像英格蘭，蘇格蘭，威爾士和北愛(ài)爾蘭，大不列顛是一個(gè)地理概念，而不是政治概念。大不列顛是不列顛群島中最大的島嶼。

Within the United Kingdom, the term ‘Great Britain’ is often used to refer to England, Scotland and Wales alone, with the intentional exclusion of Northern Ireland. This is mostly, but not completely true, as all three constituent countries have islands that are not part of Great Britain, such as The Isle of Wight, part of England, the Welsh Isle of Anglesey, the Scottish Hebrides, the Shetland Islands, the Orkney Islands and the Islands of the Clyde.
在英國(guó)，“大不列顛”通常指英格蘭，蘇格蘭和威爾士，北愛(ài)爾蘭被故意排除在外。這點(diǎn)大部分是對(duì)的，但不全對(duì)，因?yàn)樗麄兌加胁粚儆诓涣蓄崓u的小島，像懷特島、錫利群島和蘭迪島屬于英格蘭，安格爾西島屬于威爾士，赫布里底群島、設(shè)德蘭群島、奧克尼群島和克萊德群島屬于蘇格蘭。

The second biggest island in the British Isles is Ireland.
不列顛群島中的第二大島是愛(ài)爾蘭島。

It is worth noting at this point that Ireland is not a country. Like Great Britain, it’s a geographical, not political term.
“愛(ài)爾蘭”并不是一個(gè)國(guó)家。像不列顛一樣，它是一個(gè)地理概念，不是政治概念。

The Island of Ireland contains on it two countries: Northern Ireland, which we have already discussed and the Republic of Ireland.
愛(ài)爾蘭島上有兩個(gè)國(guó)家：北愛(ài)爾蘭——我們之前談過(guò)了——和愛(ài)爾蘭共和國(guó)。

When people say they are Irish, they are referring to the Republic of Ireland, which is a separate country from the United Kingdom.
當(dāng)人們提到“愛(ài)爾蘭人”，通常指的是愛(ài)爾蘭共和國(guó)，它是一個(gè)不屬于聯(lián)合王國(guó)的獨(dú)立國(guó)家。

However, both the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom are members of the European Union, even though England in particular likes to pretend that it’s an Island in the Mid-Atlantic, rather than 50 kilometers off the coast of France. But that’s a story for another time.
愛(ài)爾蘭共和國(guó)和英國(guó)都是歐盟成員，雖然英國(guó)經(jīng)常假裝自己是一個(gè)位于大西洋中部的孤島，而不是離法國(guó)海岸只有50公里的歐洲的一部分。這就是另一個(gè)故事了。

To review:
復(fù)習(xí)一下：

The two largest islands in the British Isles are Ireland and Great Britain. Ireland has on it two countries: the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, while Great Britain mostly contains three: England, Scotland and Wales. These last three, when combined with Northern Ireland, form the United Kingdom.
不列顛群島中兩個(gè)最大的島是不列顛島和愛(ài)爾蘭島。愛(ài)爾蘭島上有兩個(gè)國(guó)家：愛(ài)爾蘭共和國(guó)和北愛(ài)爾蘭，而不列顛島上又三個(gè)：英格蘭、蘇格蘭和威爾士。后三個(gè)加上北愛(ài)爾蘭組成了聯(lián)合王國(guó)——英國(guó)。

Finished? No. There are still many unanswered questions, such as: Why, when you travel to Canada, is there British Royalty on the money?
完了嗎？沒(méi)有。還有一些未解的問(wèn)題，比如，當(dāng)你到加拿大旅游時(shí)，為什么鈔票上印有英國(guó)女王？

To answer this, we need to talk about Empire.
為了解答這個(gè)問(wèn)題，我們必須談?wù)動(dòng)⒌蹏?guó)。

You can’t have gone to school in the English-speaking world without having learned that the British Empire once spanned a 1/4th world’s land and governed nearly a 1/4th world’s people.
如果你在英語(yǔ)圈上的學(xué)，就不可能不知道，英帝國(guó)曾經(jīng)占有世界四分之一的土地，統(tǒng)治全球近四分之一的人口。

While it’s easy to remember the parts of the British Empire that broke away violently, we often forget how many nations gained independence through diplomacy, not bloodshed.
那些通過(guò)斗爭(zhēng)取得獨(dú)立的國(guó)家很容易記，但是我們經(jīng)常忘記很多國(guó)家，是通過(guò)外交途徑獨(dú)立的，而不是流血戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)。

These want-to-be nations struck a deal with the Empire, where they continued to recognize the monarch(y) as the head of state in exchange for a local, autonomous parliament.
這些希望獨(dú)立的國(guó)家和英帝國(guó)簽了協(xié)議，他們繼續(xù)承認(rèn)英國(guó)君主作為國(guó)家元首。作為交換，他們可以建立獨(dú)立的自治議會(huì)。